Highland Heiress - By Margaret Moore Page 0,62

overhang.

“What if he ain’t? I say let him come up here, not us go down where we’ll be seen.”

Red hesitated for the briefest of moments before shaking his head. “He won’t be able to make it up the slope,” he said as he went to the entrance and started to climb out.

“Stupid git,” Charlie muttered. “Go on, Dan,” he ordered his dog, who leaped eagerly out of the cave.

Charlie followed more slowly, his gaze sweeping over the slope, the bushes, the rocky riverbank and the scattered, stunted trees.

Below him Red lumbered down the slope like a bear, heading toward the well-dressed fellow waiting near a spruce that likely wouldn’t last another winter. The man appeared to be alone, but there could be other men hidden nearby, with guns and ropes to bind them. Then it would be prison and the hangman’s noose.

Maybe he should cut and run right now. Let Red be caught and imprisoned.

But what if the man was alone and intending to pay? He had less than a shilling in his pocket, and no food at all.

Hungry, uncertain, wishing he’d stayed in Glasgow, Charlie watched as Red approached the nobleman. He saw his confederate’s shoulders relax, and then the nobleman brought out a purse.

He’d brought the payment after all.

Whistling for Dan, wanting to keep his dog beside him because it could still be a trap, Charlie hurried down the slope.

But when he got there, the earl was still holding tight to the money, his voice raised in anger.

“All you were supposed to do was frighten my daughter and burn down the building,” the old man snarled. “You weren’t supposed to hurt anyone. I wanted to prevent violence, not cause it!”

“It wasn’t our fault that fella came along when he did,” Red protested. “And what else should we have done? Let him walk away? Told ’im you were payin’ for the job?”

“If it was already alight, you should have fled.”

“It wasn’t yet, and he’d seen us. And we ain’t been paid. We weren’t going anywhere without our money, so it’s your fault we had to kill ’em. If you paid us before like I asked—”

“I never pay in full for a job until it’s completed to my satisfaction,” the earl retorted. “And you didn’t kill him, you oaf. He’s alive and in my house at this very moment.”

Charlie and Red both stared at him. “Wha’?” Red muttered. “He ain’t dead? But I stabbed him.”

“Not deeply enough, apparently, and he can identify you, so I suggest you take this money and go far away— America would probably be best. Nobody cares who goes there,” the earl growled as he finally shoved the leather purse into Red’s hand.

Scowling, Red weighed the pouch in his hand. “There ain’t enough here for both of us to sail for America. And you kept us here when we could ha’ been well away. More risk for us, more it’ll cost ya—another fifty pound or so.”

“Are you daft?” the earl demanded.

“No, my lord. We’re willin’ to go far away if you’re willin’ to pay. O’ course, if you’re not, we could always ask your pretty daughter for more. Don’t you think she’d pay us, Charlie, rather than have everybody in Dunbrachie know what her father done?”

Blanching, the earl drew a pistol from his greatcoat. “I could shoot you down like rabid dogs and all I’d have to say is that you tried to rob me.”

Charlie glanced at his dog, sitting obediently at his side. All he had to do was whisper a word and Dan would attack, as ferocious as a lion.

“If you attempt to talk to my daughter—if she so much as sees you from a distance—you’ll be sorry. If you’re caught, you’ll hang. And if you try to involve me, there’s not a soul in Scotland who’ll believe your word over mine. After all, why would I want to destroy my own daughter’s school?”

“Maybe your daughter isn’t as stupid as you think,” Red replied. “Might be she’ll believe us. After all, why else would we come to this godforsaken place? Not for the sport of it, that’s for sure. And she’s heard of the Three Feathers in Glasgow, ain’t she? If we say that’s where we met you, she’ll believe it, won’t she? Ain’t she had to send servants to drag you out o’ there often enough?”

Charlie kept his eyes on the earl. He’d worked with mute beasts long enough to recognize a silent human reaction, and the man hesitated a moment too long